Revival

Dear All,

It's been 2 years and WE'RE BACK!

Although most people probably aren't following this blog, since I am out and about (said in a Canadian accent) again around Europe I thought I'd start blogging again! This time I'm off on an adventure with my love Louis. For those who don't know him - he's pretty amazing and goooood lookin' *see picture below.

Right now I'm in Luxembourg "not" working and "not" living here. It's complicated. And there might be a few problems in 3 months because I don't have a visa. I'll go into this in detail a little later, but for right now I'm having an amazing time. We have a little apartment just a 15 minute walk from the centre where the office is and where the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg sleeps. It's a small city with the feel of a small town. It's actually kind of frustrating sometimes, like the fact that on the weekend shops are all closed on Sundays and only opened until 1:30 pm on Saturdays. Plus during the weekdays shops close at 6:30 when people only get off work at 6. Good luck getting your groceries here! But I think it's mainly due to the fact half the people who work in Luxembourg don't even live in the city...so essentially Luxembourg is a small town pretending to be a big city Mon-Fri. Oh well. It's cute. And there are some really great bike paths that take you out into the countryside.

This past weekend Louis and I went on a 30 km cycle through the countryside. It was amazing. We got lucky and on Sunday had a partially sunny day, which is a nice change from the 7-day a week rain-fest. This is the only place so far that I've seen more rain than Van-city. Hard to believe? It's fact! Trust me. It was beautiful. Rolling hills, farms, cows, forests, rivers...very cool.

But a couple of weeks ago we took a road trip to the UK. We stayed in London a couple nights with Louis' best mate Myles. First night we met up with Chris Furness, another one of his best mates and hung out. Chris brought along a couple of his flat mates - Evart from Holland and Rupert from England who are all musicians. And they don't just live in a flat. They live in a converted warehouse which is literally a warehouse split in half, with an inserted 2nd floor with 7 bedrooms and a massive area to jam and hang out. They had loads of guitars hanging about, a drum set and an organ. It was really awesome.

On the way back from Edinburgh we spent the night in London at Chris's place and sat around listening to them jam. So cool. After London, Louis and I took a trip over to Bangor in North Wales to visit the lovely Laura Bliedung! Wales is GORGEOUS! Also, if you get a chance to go speak to someone who speaks Welsh and you'll just be blown away. The Welsh language is unlike any other and absolutely no relation to English. It's pretty cool. Bangor is a small town that is 60% students who attend the University of Bangor. Laura's just completed her masters in Psych there! It was so much fun catching up with her. She showed us her special pier that looked out towards the ocean and Ireland which you could barely see just in the distance. Then we went on a bit of an adventure across the bridge into a place called Anglaise. There we found this gorgeous beach. We walked along it to this little peninsula that had some old ruins on it and a couple of light houses. Wandering along the peninsula were wild cows and horses. I wanted to go see the horses and cows up close so we crept our way towards them. We got about 4-5 feet away from the horses before the horses felt we were too close and galloped a ways away to keep their distance. However, it took the cows a little longer to realize were there. Louis had a bit of fun and chased them around. However when the 2 cows had been split up we happened to be stand in between them - right in the middle. The cows pretty much looked like this...

Tongue and nostril included.

I wasn't too comfortable considering the fact we'd just chased them around and they were suddenly on either side of us. Pretty much terrified from my life, I instructed Laura and Louis that it was time to go and to move slowly away from the cows and to be careful not to make eye contact...you know...just in case. We ended up getting out alive. Once we were a distance away the cows galloped to join each other. Turns out the cows weren't blood thirsty creatures planning on taking their revenge. That was reassuring. Meanwhile, the horses were on the other side of the hills just watching - wise horsies.

After Wales? EDINBURGH! Now that was fun. There I met loads of Louis old friends and his mom Cecile and his lovely sister Hannah. Cecile threw a little bit of a Welcome (back) party for Louis and I. I'm pretty sure we met ALL of Cecile's friends and their spouses. There were almost 40 people there in her little flat for the party. Cecile though KNOWS how to throw a party. Very classy and very beautifully done. One of her guests told her, "You are the embodiment of good taste". So true.

Anyways, all in all we drove 3500 km to and from the UK. But after 8 days of traveling, it was nice to be back in our little apartment in Luxembourg.

Keep on tuckin'!!!!!!